I don't know how familiar you are with Brian Eno.On one level he's a composer, creator of some seriously interesting music. On another level he's a thinker, a challenger of ideas. His Oblique Strategies are an iconic set of inspirational cards designed to help you approach challenges in new ways, with ideas freed from context, hence oblique. For a while I have been toying with the idea of creating a set of "oblique strategies" for clinical care.Based on the premise that good clinical care is a triad of science, art and craft, clinical oblique strategies, or MedObliques would act as a knowledge base to support the art of medicine.After all we have huge knowledge bases to support the science of care, but little to stimulate the art of care. I would suggest it is the loss of the art of care, an art which invokes passion, emotion and interaction, which contributes to the failure of systems in which knowledge is applied without passion, without care, without feeling. A failing perhaps best illustrated by Mid Staffs. So the challenge arises what would a MedOblique look like? What would it mean?I don't know the answer, but that's ok, it's an art not a science.

Of course in the 21st century the cards will be an App, for android or iPhone and in spirit with Web 2.0 users can submit and share their own MedObliques - co-creation is also part of the art.